What Happened to the Traditional American Family?
Republicans Think the Gay Couple Down the Street are the Problem
Hey, Republicans, especially evangelicals, you lost the battle to preserve the sanctity of the traditional family decades ago. Wake up!
I know you think that the LBGTQ community is the biggest threat to your family, but I’m here to tell you that they’ve never been the problem. It’s YOU. It’s your inability to be faithful to your spouses, keep peace in the home, and raise your children with an intact traditional family. You know what I mean?
Divorce has been normalized in America and you’re just as apt to get a divorce or two as anyone else.
Apparently, your religion and daily contact with an all-powerful god, fail to establish compatibility with a significant other. You pick poor spouses and then fight with each other just like the rest of the world. You cheat and drift apart and find it difficult to communicate just like anyone else.
The difference between you and the rest of us is that you make big claims that the Republican party is all about the family.
You’re always trying to protect your offspring from the rest of us by interfering in our lives. You push an aggressive agenda that claims the gay couple down the street will harm your children and your family when we all know that you’ve traumatized your children without any help from outsiders.
Good grief! Get a grip on reality.
If you have a strong family unit because your god is leading you down the path of righteousness then that should cover all the bases. Unlike the rest of us who you claim are lost and living in darkness, you’re walking in the light. You’re literally talking to the Almighty every day. How can that not be enough to keep your family unit together? I mean if that doesn’t guarantee the sanctity of the family, then I don’t know what will.
But remember this!
There was a time in the very recent past when divorce was taboo. Both the church and the government made it very difficult for a couple to get a divorce. And those who succeeded were often looked down upon by society at large, especially divorced women. Contrary to popular opinion, America has never had a clean divide between church and state.
So let’s talk about your favorite topic — SIN.
Is divorce a sin? Is remarriage adultery? Well, in the not-so-distant past, divorce was just as much a religious issue as a social issue. It’s true. Christians weren’t focused on gay marriage.
They were controlling your marriages.
Divorce was a hot topic in my house as a child. My parents believed that divorce was a sin. This belief was one very important reason that they eventually started their own church/cult. It seemed that more and more churches were beginning to condone divorce in America.
I mean it’s always easier to judge someone else’s sins than to exert control over your own sinful natures.
Listen, I know what I’m talking about. I grew up in a radical evangelical cult and was constantly reminded that divorced people were going to hell. Sex was a hot topic in our church. You might say that the leaders were obsessed with it. They were constantly advising the flock against the sins of the flesh. You might say that I heard more talk about sex as a kid growing up in the church than I did after I left the church to join the civilian world.
The grownups in the cult were obsessed with sex, especially the sex lives of others.
My parents refused to change their belief that the vows taken at the altar were holy. They did not conform with the newly emerging acceptance of divorce and remarriage. It was the remarriage part that they were adamantly opposed to normalizing. They considered remarriage to be an adulterous relationship. There was a clear distinction in their minds between fornication and adultery. Fornication, also a taboo, was sex before marriage. Adultery was sex with someone other than your spouse. Divorce papers were merely illegitimate legal documents.
God’s laws would always supersede the state.
This became a contentious topic between Christians from almost every denomination back in the day. I think it’s fair to say that churches influenced the government’s acceptance of divorce as well, making getting a divorce often very difficult and stigmatizing, especially for divorced women. Depending on where a couple lived, it sometimes became necessary to leave their home state in order to legally divorce. Sound familiar? It should.
No pity for the couple that was in a miserable marriage.
This attitude toward divorce was deeply instilled in me and to this day even though I don’t think divorce is a sin, I remain somewhat sensitive to what I perceive as social issues surrounding divorce. Just for the record, SIN is not the way I define social problems. As a humanist, I believe that it benefits human beings to work toward creating a better society in the here and now and not as a means to hedge our bets just in case there’s an afterlife.
We owe that to the next generation.
Still, divorce, at least in America, does impact society and most importantly children. That’s right, evangelicals. Your divorces harm your kids. Whether you think so or not, they are traumatized by your reckless behavior, the fighting in the household, the dating after the divorce, the new stepdads and stepmoms, living between two houses, and the string of sisters and brothers that they must accept. As a teacher/principal in public education, I witnessed firsthand the effects of divorce on the lives of children. It bothered me. I was conflicted. I’ve never wanted society to return to the good old days when women were forced to stay in abusive relationships.
That certainly wasn’t the answer.
Divorce rates have been on the decline for a while, however, but then marriage is on the decline as well. Only 51% of Americans are married and that trend doesn’t seem to be going away. Maybe you’ve managed to ruin our faith in the institution of marriage to some degree.
After all, we haven’t seen many successful relationships modeled, so what can we expect?
Suffice it to say, you have a lot of explaining to do to the rest of us. Especially since Christians are constantly interfering in my life and the lives of my family and friends. We wouldn’t pay much attention to what you and yours are doing except you’re always trying to assert yourselves when it comes to our life choices.
So, I can’t help but notice the hypocrisy and blatant inability to practice what you preach.
I agree that the traditional family is no longer the norm. It’s gone. Those days are over. You did that to yourselves. No one else should be blamed. You bought into the new norms and helped to make a new type of American family — a combination of yours, mine, and ours.
So stop pretending that gay couples living their own quiet lives are the ones threatening you and your family.
If you want to bring back family values start by examining your own lives and then build a secure family life for your children. If you’re not happy with the state of the world stop blaming someone else for your shortcomings. Because if you don’t get your house in order, your god might not let you through the pearly gates. Yes, it’s true that families are suffering in America, but it’s not the gay couple down the street that’s causing so much trouble.
It’s YOU!
Teresa is an author and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
